eisenbahnstudio

A few weeks ago, my wife and I spent a weekend in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area. This was an opportune moment to pay a visit to the Steamtown National Historic Site. There was not enough time to go on the steam ride to Moscow, PA but plenty to take look around the museum.

Here are a few highlights from our visit:

Baldwin Locomotive Works #8

Lehigh and New England Railroad, Caboose #583 (brake rigging)

Delaware & Hudson Boxcar 18119 (brakehose & coupler)

Louisville and Nashville Railroad, Post Office Car #1100

Lackawanna 664 EMD F3 & Reading 903 EMD FP7

United Pacific 4012 Big Boy

DL&W 82209 coal hopper

Turnout - notice the missing guard rails

View more photos on flickr.

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Model railroading has always been an expensive hobby. Recently, it seems that price increases on engines and especially freight cars have accelerated a bit and that despite the fact that most tooling and production is done in China.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Rapido Trains, Inc. alerting me to the fact that more price increases are looming ahead. Labor costs are rising even in China and thus the costs of manufacturing model trains.

Manufacturers will have to think about whether it makes sense to bring production back or moving to another off-shore location where labor costs are more favorable. I do commend Rapido for openly communicating this development to their customers. In the age of social media, transparency is king.

One way of keeping the cost of the hobby down is of course limiting the number of purchases. This is what I have resorted to even though the reason is not an economical one. Since I modify and detail most of my models, there are a few projects in the queue and usually I can resist the temptation to add even more to my list.

Got an opinion on the development of model train prices? Share it in the comments below.

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The other day, I noticed an interesting ad by Rapido Trains Inc. in the July issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. It was advertising custom runs of a car with different paint schemes and showed an example of their nice HO scale Wide-Vision Caboose with custom lettering for the CSX Great Lakes Division Mechanical Department.

I find the ad interesting because custom runs make a lot of sense for large clubs like FREMO. If you get an order big enough (Rapido indicates a 300 piece minimum which is really not that much), you can easily get a run of a cars with no number, which would make unique renumbering for club operation much easier. Instead of trying to carefully remove the original road number, which sometimes damages paint and surface, one could just apply a custom decal, apply dull clear coat, weather the car and be done with it. Leaving a number off instead of making a whole custom scheme should also be a lot cheaper.

Maybe it’s time that European train manufacturers such as BRAWA are starting to openly advertise similar services or at least offer cars with no lettering so one can do the whole thing from scratch.

By the way, I do like this Rapido caboose. They just released new paint schemes and the one I want is among them. But more on that another time…

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Currently, I am in the process of reading books about the Pennsylvania Railroad and its successors from my local library. A couple months ago, I found The Pennsylvania Railroad: A pictorial history by Edwin Alexander. The book is from 1947 and chronicles the first 100 years of the Pennsy. The name pictorial history is a bit of a misnomer by today’s standards because there just aren’t that many pictures in the 250-page volume.

More interesting than the pictures are Alexander’s accounts of the PRR’s history, which he lays out very thoroughly from its origins to its development and construction. Further, he describes passenger, freight service, and covers locomotive development extensively from steam all the way to electrics. He closes with a chapter of vivid description of incidents on the railroad including the Pittsburgh Riots of 1877, the Johnstown Flood and the Broad Street Station fire.

I found it a great introduction to the railroad and I was amazed at how many technical advancements were first introduced by the company. The book is out of print but maybe you can still find it at your local library or buy it used on Amazon.

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I just returned from a very nice visit to Germany, where I stopped by the 2010 Glottertal FREMO:87 meet. Even though I didn’t run a single train during the operating sessions, it was great to be back, talk shop and catch up with friends and fellow modelers from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The modular Proto:87 community seems to be growing quite nicely in Europe and I hope that we US modelers can soon start our own Proto modular system.

An ETA 515 makes a quick stop in Seeburg

The layout was compact but offered a few interesting features including a short narrow gauge set-up that crossed the standard gauge line on a few dual gauge modules. A completely separate test layout with two fiddle yards allowed for running unfinished projects, locos and cars from other eras/continents including my just completed Penn Central X58.

My Penn Central X58 361825 on a test drive

The new coupling tool from Dutch Werps Modelbouw was in wide use and seemed to help speed up coupling and uncoupling – otherwise quite tedious tasks, which tend to slow down switching and lead to time-crunches during operating sessions.

The new coupling tool from Dutch Werps Modelbouw speeds up switching

I left the meet inspired to pick up the pace on my modeling projects including a few converted Proto:87 engines. My goal is to help prepare enough era 4 German rolling stock to allow for an operating session with more modern material by 2012.

Below are a few more scenes along the right of way taken with my new DSLR. Enjoy!

Taking a breather on the front porch - a popular scene on the FREMO:87 layout

VT 95 in the colorful fiddle yard Rambach

Missed photo op at a level crossing

A local freight train on the way to Gutach

Getting milled lumber ready for pick-up in Gutach

The local freight train arrives in Heiligenthal

93 1099 with an afternoon freight train on the way from Fornsbach to Iserlohn

A VT 95 and ETA 515 meet in Heiligenthal

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